While I'm thinkin' about this, Miss Vincent reminds me that she's waitin' for my verdict on the thing. The last I heard her say was about bein' tied to that lion.
"Well," I says, "I'll tell you. I think it's pretty soft for the lions myself and—"
"How are you and Stupid gettin' along?" butts in the Kid, pointin' to Van Ness and touchin' Miss Vincent's arm.
She frowns.
"You mustn't call him Stupid!" she says. "Mister Van Ness is an artist and a gentleman—and—and right now I want to tell you that I think all you men are wicked for the way you have been treating him! Here he is away out here, a stranger in a strange land, and simply because he is above the vulgar horseplay so popular around here, you ostracize him. Because his grammar and dress is perfect he is a pariah! Don't you think he feels that? Isn't he human the same as the rest of you? Why—why, if he were a woman, all the girls would have helped and encouraged him and made him welcome in any gathering while he was here. Don't you think it hurt when you broke up that poker party last night when he came in? Or when he was deliberately excluded from that hunting trip by that wretched Eddie Duke? Or any of the—the mean, petty, little things you have done to him—all of you—since he's been here? Oh, you men are horrid!" She gathers up her skirts and flashes Scanlan a look, "I thought you, at least, were different!" she whispers—and trips into the picture!
For about three minutes the Kid stands lookin' after her without sayin' a word. He acts like he has stopped one with his chin!
"The big English stiff!" he busts out finally. "What does he mean by comin' over here and gettin' me in a jam with my girl? I'll get that bird, though, believe me!"
"What are you gonna do?" I says.
"I'm gonna take that solemn-faced simp back of the African Desert and give him a chance at the welterweight title!" he snorts. "I'll wallop that bird till he'll wish he had stayed over in dear old England and—"
"Stoppa!" comes a voice from the back of us, and we look around into the muzzles of two automatics. On the other end of them was Tony!